


Foray into Times Unknown

by ShiDreamin



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route Spoilers, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route Spoilers, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route Spoilers, Gen, Gender-Neutral My Unit | Byleth, Mental Instability, POV Third Person, Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23831362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShiDreamin/pseuds/ShiDreamin
Summary: They were your students, once.-A series of insights before death.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Flayn

It is both a tragedy and a miracle that the Flayn they see today is the same as five years past; her hair is the same light green, her lips shaky when they face her opponents. She is little, but strong, has always been strong, to have survived her infinite lifelines.

“This makes me terribly sad, but this is my duty, to which I must be true!”

Braver words on a braver face, perhaps, years ago.

If Byleth takes a step closer, watches a little carefully, they will see that the Flayn that stands before their army has lost all likeness of the girl who had once welcomed them to the academy. Where she had once sought freedom and opportunity from her brother’s watchful eyes is now the bearings of her despair by his side, her fingers clutched to his clothes in a manner so similar to a child. The Flayn who had sung songs with Dorothea and baked with Annette can no longer do so, because Dorothea is the one who raises her hands, her eyes tired, always so tired, and Annette is dead.

Byleth had killed her themselves, while she had screamed for her father.

It is the cost that they bear, the price they must pay, standing in red armors and staining in rust blood.

Edelgard had chosen them, and so they had chosen her.

Flayn would have been a great ally, had been once, a dancer in flowing cloth and a beautiful smile as she laughed and played, swinging her arms with Caspar and Linhardt, who only ever truly opened his eyes in her presence. She had bounced along with Hubert, whose usual snark remarks dried out, who had advised her to give Bernadetta time. She had been small but lithe, young but wise, a warrior who fought with techniques a thousand years old, still fresh in her mind.

She had seen Byleth, in the dark and in the light, before the reawakening and after the dawn, and she had known, of course she had known, history itself bare to Flayn’s gaze. She had known and she had stayed, her hands and theirs, because she had wanted to.

Flayn had loved Byleth, the Black Eagles, the entire academy. She had loved them because it was all she wanted to do.

Byleth had loved Flayn, the Black Eagles, the entire academy. They had not known how, to love and to be loved, but they had tried and they know now that the thrumming in their heart then was of contentment, of joy, of trust and love.

It burns, now, in that odd little fashion when death is imminent, inevitable, and it is for that reason that Byleth turns and allows Dorothea to scream.

(It is not inevitable, it does not have to be, and Byleth knows, they knew, but it is what Edelgard wants, this time, another time, always, her eyes cold even as her heart beats, her heart cold even as her eyes wet, and Byleth will always take hold of their sword because it is Edelgard who chose them, and they who chose her.)

Dorothea gasps when her hands pull back, shaking, a familiar tremor in her palms as her eyes dart to avoid the result of her power. A part of Byleth, the cold, unmovable thing they’ve always known, whispers, and their eyes seek what Dorothea’s could not.

Even in the chaos of war, the blood on their sword, the sounds of iron meeting iron, of magic and madness, there is nowhere else to look but Flayn. Nothing else to hear but her whisper.

“Father, please forgive me,” a breath, low, uneven, and though her mouth could almost form a smile towards Byleth, the words are not for them, nor the Empire, nor even Edelgard. The curses and the taunts, the pleas and the cries, so familiar in the times of war, are gone.

“I am returning to Mother now… before you do.”

All that remain, all that has ever remained, is Flayn, who loves rather than hates, who thinks only of the one she loves the most. Loved the most.

She is dead, now.

“ _Flayn!”_

Seteth’s scream rings across the battlefield. It is loud, it is broken, and then it is buried under the clash of swords, the similar echoes of cries as men and women and children, young, so young, choke on their final breath. His eyes scan the field, lost, furious, empty. Familiar.

Their gaze meets.

Byleth draws their sword.

There are orders to be filled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yaaaaaay Angst Time!!
> 
> I have no excuse for this. Angst! Death! The horrible feeling of watching your family die! Byleth being cray cray because they're mad with power!? Yay!  
> I have a few characters who I want to write these scenes about, but if this first chapter is any indication, be prepared for family feels.


	2. Claude

“Enough! You’ve bested me. if I die here, the Alliance becomes part of the Empire.”

In a kinder life, a kinder world, Byleth would like to imagine sharing a table in the dining hall with their students, five years later, grown and yet so young. It is so easy, a reflection in the water, to picture the easy laughter and teasing provoked from years of solitude come together, compadre a light in the sea of darkness their students have so diligently waded through. Besides them stands Edelgard, tall in her armor, straight in the gait of her steps, and yet Byleth knows what she looks like when the curtains fall. When the horns come off, the armor loud as it hits the floor. The slow smile made only more painful by the welling of tears.

“Do you yield, then? You’ve never known when to give up.”

In a kinder world, Byleth would have stood by her side from the beginning, and with them, a cast of students. In a kinder world, there would not be a war, staining the land red with regret. In a kinder world, they would be in a dining hall, Edelgard, Byleth, and

“Spare,” Sothis echoes, “or kill?”

Claude would be a welcome face, Byleth imagines, if not for the bruising along his jawline, the tired bags that drag at his emerald eyes. He is older, grown, though Byleth wonders if it is for want of more peaceful times that he hasn’t filled out his form much. Lean, fast, and dangerous. If not for the stubble of a beard lining his chin, it would be easy to fool them into believing he hadn’t aged a year.

He is not so dangerous here, crouching with a shaking arm over his wyvern, bow under Byleth’s foot. They consider pressing on it, just to hear the resounding snap, just to see the grimace flicker over Claude’s face.

Claude smiles at them so, charming, sweet. Quick body and quicker mind, sharper than any weapon could cut. Even an enemy, it is hard to dislike him.

“Well, I can’t just surrender so easily. I’m responsible for the others. If you’re as smart as you seem, I bet you’ve figured out why I was able to summon Almyran reinforcements. Wouldn’t it be better to let me go, and have me in your debt?”

He has a point.

Claude would indeed be useful, a cunning tool in a war such as this. Edelgard is no fool though; his existence is a threat to her power, has been, will be. Letting him live is no crime, and yet it is the beginning of reckoning in her book. The murder, the massacre, the genocide of the people of Fodlan in the name of peace—to allow Claude, one of her largest political opponents, to live is to accept that the smaller voices were needlessly snuffed out. To allow Claude to continue that smile, that grin, those emerald eyes to shine through, is to allow a threat to remain unruffled. And for what reason? Sentiment? Long forgotten friendship?

No. Edelgard does not need reminders of her failures to live.

But.

Byleth has seen this, knows this. The moment of regret flashing on Claude’s face, the resignation with which he lets his dreams go. And Edelgard, hardened ever so by the war she started, by the slaughter she has led. Edelgard, who watches her once friend’s eyes fade glossy. Edelgard, who loses another strand of faith, another could have, another would been: for reasons that she believes in, for reasons she has lost so many for. Edelgard, who loses herself again.

“Spare,” Sothis, a voice that falls so close to Byleth’s own, something of a ringing of a soul they had once known, repeats, insistent, impatient ever so, “or kill?”

Edelgard needs a reminder of trust.

And Claude has always been one of Byleth’s favorite students.

The easy smile that slides over Claude’s face is slow, dangerous, and it is a difficulty for Byleth to not tighten their grip at the sight. But Claude is generous even in defeat, and he grapples upwards onto his wyvern with a shaky grasp.

“Thank you, Professor. And you, Edelgard. I’m truly grateful for your courageous decision. I will return your kindness one day… I promise.” With a speed that betrays his trembling, Claude flips onto his wyvern, offering Byleth and Edelgard a nod before flying off the platform over open seas. Byleth stares at his shrinking frame as Edelgard turns to her army, raising a hand with triumph.

“Everybody! Raise your voices in a victory cheer! Derdriu is ours!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dun~
> 
> I couldn't kill Claude x,3 I thought about it, but when I began writing and working on this fic, it was actually going to be about the 3 lords save/kill quotes. After realizing that Claude is basically the only one who can live no matter what, it felt kinda wrong to kill him, even in the frame of this fic.
> 
> I want to tag something I introduced in this chapter, but then it'll spoil the later chapters >;( We'll just add it later!


	3. Judith

Balance.

Life is an endless culmination of gives and takes. For every good, there is a bad, for every bad, a good. Reality is exhausting, a dead weight that lingers even as time rewinds, the blood on Byleth’s hand different, along their sword, along their boot. Its blood, still, warm turned cold then dried, crusty flakes that they scratch off at night alone after the sauna.

It’s seeing time freeze a moment before the sword comes crashing over Ashe’s head, his iron bow snapped between his fingers, head bowed to snatch an arrow impaled in a red man’s body. Byleth could save him, they must, so careful to let not a single student die, but.

They swallow, exhaling a careful breath. They can rewind, they must, lest the bloody sight of Ashe’s head rolling in Derdrui become true.

But.

Judith’s mouth is open in mid-shout as she rounds the corner, the rapier in her hand slick with blood, her other hand outstretched.

They’ve made it this far with trickery and foresight beyond even Claude’s skill. But even time grows tired as the lines merge and begin again, and it is between doom and damnation that Byleth stills.

Judith will die.

They know this well, because it was the red men closing in on her that drew them away from Annette’s side, because it is Dedue who splits from Ingrid to cover her stride towards her nephew, because it was Byleth who saw the axe fall too close the first time. Times.

But it is Ashe, and it is Judith, and between the two there lies an echo in Byleth’s head that whispers for them to reverse.

(It wants to know. Judith has never died before, not on this run, not on the ones before, never whether Byleth approached Garreg Mach with a red flag, nor blue, nor golden. There’s something primal burning within Byleth, around them, eating them from their inside out. It wants to know.

It’s hungry.)

Time flows backwards, once present scenes flickering from view, colored to grey to nothingness, as the voices once killed renew themselves, as hope once crushed flicker alive again. Byleth closes their eyes, recenters their feet, and hears Sothis echo within their mind.

They open their eyes to three men racing towards Ashe: an archer, a mage, a swordsman.

It is easy enough to fell the archer, whipping the Sword of the Creator forward and plunging it through his gut, spilling from the wound red-dyed deeper than the emblem on his armor. A sidestep lands them onto the mage, ripping their arms from their body, the head from their neck. The swordsman kicks at Ashe’s iron bow, the weapon finally shattering after weeks of warfare, as Ashe falls to the floor, his fingers closing in on an arrow lodged in a fallen man.

Ashe isn’t fast enough. The sword would go right through his neck.

The swordsman manages to yell as he raises his weapon, only to still, gasping, as Byleth beheads him with the same ease as a child of war.

“Professor?”

Relief spills out of Byleth at the soft noise, Ashe’s eyes, _alive_ , flickering to meet their own. He’s pulled out the arrow, holding it upward as though a dagger, and if Byleth had not seen the time where Ashe’s head rolled it may be convincing enough to believe Ashe would have been able to fought back. That he wouldn’t have been killed here, one of the countless, a student Byleth isn’t bound to protect.

But he’s alive. Ashe lives.

_“Judith!”_

This world is built on balance.

Claude’s voice shouldn’t ring across the battlefield, crystal clear against the sound of clashing iron, the screams of fallen soldiers. There is the tingle of magic, the scent of burning flesh, and in the midst of it all they can hear him still, raw, vulnerable, the man Byleth should not see, not here, not when they’ve chosen another because fate dictated it so. This is not the time Byleth stands by Claude’s side from dawn to dusk, coaxing him to bed even as the stubborn man refuses. This is not the time Byleth stands to the side to watch with amusement when Judith succeeds where they fail, storming into their tents with little mercy.

Judith is dead now, and though it is not their sword that is smeared with her blood the weight of their choice settles all the same.

Claude yells. It’s loud, it’s emotional, it’s real, on this battlefield, in this timeline. He shouts for a mercy of another time, and though he is halfway across the field, it is as though the action has stilled. As though time itself will wait, until the moment has passed, and the grieving has ended. The cry of battle fades, the tinge of blood slows, and for a time, for this frozen second, Byleth has a chance to think.

Byleth wonders when it’s curiosity will be sated. When deaths will occur as nature demanded, rather than the consequence of a choice. Byleth wonders when their students will open their eyes, if they ever will, and see the hand that binds their fate.

Byleth wonders if they’ll let Judith die again.

No. They don’t wonder that at all.

It’s with a final glance that time fizzles back into place, the sound of anger and fear hidden behind war cries and steel sparks. Byleth straightens, one hand grasping Ashe to pull him to his full height, lodging the arrow once more. They have a war to fight.

Judith will live again. Byleth is sure of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You thought Claude got away easy, huh? Jokes on him!!
> 
> Sacrifices and family are such key themes in FE3H that I wanted to incorporate in this fic. SPoilers for Ashen Wolves: Citri's scene at the final chapter made so much sense to me. There's things you can't go back from, and things you would never go back for, for your family. I think Judith would happily accept this fate to protect Claude, just like how Byleth would accept it to protect Ashe (their "chosen" family).
> 
> Also, Ashe shows up in sooo many of my fics lol. He's not actually in my top ranking of characters, but he's super easy to write omg ;x; Thank u Ashe, ur a good boi


	4. Dimitri

“I saw him.”

One may think, with the pausing of leaves in the air, the shallow current of the river frozen despite the sun’s rays casting overhead, the silent motion of a man stuck in time with his sword raised high, looming, that there is no such thing as unpredictable. That life goes on simply because life can go on, because Byleth allows life to go on, because they will tire at one point, they must, exhausted enough to let the flowers droop and fade back into the Earth.

It seems that there is nothing uncontrollable on this very world, so long as Byleth walks. So long as they breathe, and see, and take in the entirety of the people. Of their lord.

That is how it would seem.

“Who? Dimitri?”

Wrong.

There are such material things that Byleth cannot move, cannot stop, cannot control despite the very magic that turns back the hands of time. They have seen and they have tried, when the birds have stilled and the fighting has reverted, when the blood on their hands had not been washed away but rather stripped free, gone, flowing back into the faceless body from which they came from. They have power. They have so much power.

Hilda stands by them with red stains soaked into her skirt, her shoulders heaving with every breath, the slightest tremble to her arms gone with age, with war. She looks up and stares at Byleth in the eye, and speaks those words that never change.

“He was completely different from how I remember.” The words float in the air. Dimitri, a demon. Dimitri, a monster, torn apart by the ghosts in his head, rendering him useless to their hissed whispers. Dimitri, a soul, a student, a lover, in another world.

Dimitri, who appears on the battleground punctured through with spears, who didn’t exist at all a moment before.

Dimitri, who stares at Byleth with hollow eyes and bloody hands, who has the birthed strength to tear apart an army, who seeks retribution for innocents wiped from this Earth.

That Dimitri. The one who stands by Byleth’s side with giddy laughter, more often than not, wearing a beautiful band on his ring finger. Dimitri.

He doesn’t exist.

Time stops. It turns, and rewinds, the fleeting steps of Edelgard’s troops marching into their deaths slowing, then rising, picking up to a peak at the height of the battle. The red banners wave in the air, the stench of miasma thick as smoke and fire invade ordinary lungs, killing just as many as it saves. Here, in this very moment, Edelgard’s form is gone from the field, said to be retreating.

Here, in this very moment, Dimitri is supposed to walk forward on unsteady legs, body soaked in Empire blood, Areadbhar in his hands.

Time stills even as Byleth steps forward. Left foot, right, then back, then again, until they’ve made a solid march across the field. May they turn now, they will see Claude still, his golden shadow a welcome stretch across the field, enlightening those to a man whose words are well worth their weight in gold. They will see Hilda, and Lorenz, guarding their beloved tactician, and behind them, an entire class full of deer, now turned on their predator.

Their predator who has gone from this world.

Dimitri is meant to be here, screaming, a voice beyond human range. He is meant to be a demon, a lion, a _beast_ , with a heart soaked in distant regrets and future despair.

He is meant to be alive, still, standing on this very ground stained with rust and mud, burnt and toiled over. At least now. At least in this moment, perfect in time.

But there is no one here at all.

Inevitable.

Time turns, and it turns, with or without Byleth’s interventions. There is the taste of bitter copper once again, a sting of words misplaced for souls mistepped. They are the once haves, the could bes. The potentials.

Dimitri flickers in the air, a dead man. His eyes are open, an artificial blankness in them, even as his mouth rears open, teeth like daggers. There are spears in him, through him, soaked in the very fabric that allows him to retain the name of man still. Byleth stands there, even as the spears run him through, unable to help. Unable to stop them.

What is there to stop, when the spears appear only after they have already punctured his skin?

There are no Empire men here. No people in iron armor and red flags, no crimson helmed warriors who swear by a crumbling dynasty. Those who exist in this world march on to face the deer Byleth knows will survive, whether it be by their skill, or their hand. They spare no glance towards the man who once was meant to sit on the throne.

It is as though he doesn’t exist at all, until he does, a solid object hitting the ground with a dull thud just as pink flickers past. Hilda, Byleth registers, and though her eyes glance up they pass by them entirely, flickering past. Unknowing. Unseeing.

“He deserved a better end.”

Hilda recounts, sighing. Claude nods, a troubled pinch to his brow, no doubt thinking of the strategies he would have changed, the risks he could have taken, to salvage this one man. This once friend, this rival, this man cloaked in blues and reds.

Claude would have saved Dimitri, had he the ability to.

Byleth does. Claude does not.

And so Dimitri remains, a corpse of a man.

They have no time to spare; there remains the end of the war, and after that, another. That, though, is a secret still tucked under Byleth’s skin, and though Claude glances over at them with that same knowing glance, that prodding, that curiosity, it matters not if they tell him. It matters not what they do.

The world turns with or without their intervention. The war ends. Their friends align and swear by lifetimes with each other, and Byleth, holding Claude in their arms, sighs.

Life moves on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapters get longer and longer without my permission... why
> 
> Dima ;,( RIP him   
> I've always found his death in GD odd, not just because of how it's handled (off screen) but also how Claude makes. like basically no effort to find Dima. It makes sense to me that Claude wouldn't kill Dimitri (I mean, he even pleas El to surrender so he doesn't have to kill her), but considering how Dima treats Claude in BL, this felt like developers just ran out of time to give the chapter some real substance.
> 
> At this point I feel like the main themes of this fic are in your face lmao but shhh


	5. El

There are pockets.

Weird times. In-between times. The seconds when Byleth blinks too long and the world changes for it. Sometimes the menu was scheduled to be peach sorbet and pheasant roast, but Byleth would wake up to two courses of sweet bun trio and one onion gratin soup. Sometimes it meant preparing for a lance training session, only to find themselves lecturing about authority.

Sometimes it meant letting their weapon droop when it was meant to rise, taking in the cold, thin air and the broken voice that slithers out.

Hegemon Edelgard.

“Facing you… I grow weak.”

This isn’t dialogue meant for war. It’s quiet, raspy, a delicate thing from a monster of a human. It’s reminiscent of the Edelgard Byleth knows, the one who had held their hand and giggled a tune meant for weddings and spring dances, the one who shook during the nights when the nightmares refused to float into dreams. Her eyes, and those are eyes, broken and hollow they may be, track theirs, and even in this moment, in this war of her own making, she seems familiar. Fragile.

Their sword comes down.

The mutant deformities collapse from her body, shattering the tiles as they fall. What Blue Lions have managed to make it this far fall back from the dust, coughing, and though Byleth’s eyes water and their nose itch their feet lay flat. To their side, Dimitri’s remain the same.

It’s his staff which lowers, his hand that comes forward to her fallen form.

“El…”

The clock is up. There’s little point to drawing the sword of the creator now, not to this moment. With Rhea, with Claude, it has always been Byleth who helped reign justice on the world, on this tormented Empress. For cowardice, for peace, it had been Byleth who let their sword cut and twist into her fragmented future.

In this world, with this person, it had never been Byleth who dealt the final blow. It is, perhaps, the final guiding hand of fate. That it would be them, these estranged once-siblings, who would end each other. That it would be them, these friends, who smiled as they killed.

“Monster.”

A pocket.

The word falls from Dimitri’s mouth with the same floating hope as his last. It’s odd, unfamiliar, and in its striking clarity comes sudden nausea. It is as though they’ve drifted hopelessly off track, once flying forward to peaceful days and now shot through with an arrow, spiraling downward against jagged cliffs and bubbling lava.

Pockets mean change. New things. Odd things. A student who usually despises fish has suddenly come to love it, another who struggles with Faith suddenly adept at it. Pockets are fun, fresh, a glance into the would-be’s and could-be’s of the world, had they not been locked into these unending paths.

But the pockets have never happened here. Not in these seconds, the moments before certain death.

It’s fear that tightens Byleth’s fingers. It’s curiosity, twisted, bitter, that keeps them lingering to the side.

Dimitri speaks.

“You became a monster for your ordeals,” a breath, unsteady, and it is perhaps the exhaustion of encountering this death a million times over, but it seems sincere, somehow, a flicker of a man who regrets with the openness he’s always longed for. “But so did I.”

Edelgard glances upward. At the hand. At the staff. At the words, odd, _new_ , floating. An invitation. A connection.

Her hand falls to her side. Under her cape. Around a familiar thing.

The pocket sews itself shut.

The kingdom can celebrate in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> El ;n;
> 
> This and Claude were actually the two chapters I had envisioned at the beginning of writing this! I wanted to do an insight into the big battle choices regarding the lords from different paths but the same Byleth. And then I actually started writing lmao and it became very different.
> 
> This chapter was originally going to be before Dima's chapter (just plot-wise, you learn a lot more about Byleth and this world from Dima's chapter than this one) but I had a really tough time writing these "pockets" in a way that made sense. I'm not fully satisfied with how short this is lol but it did its job
> 
> I know pretty much exactly how the next chapter is going to go and oof writing it hurts.


	6. Dad

There lives a voice inside Byleth’s head.

It is not Sothis, no, her own tinny voice as wise as it is shrill, impatient and indulgent. Her language is built on drowsy clarity, and her power, though vast, is not omnipotence. Once, a long time ago, Byleth had thought it was her playing tricks, mimicking voices throughout the ages, pretending to be another, if only to soothe the loneliness of waking to a world unknown, in a time unknown.

But it is not Sothis, because when Sothis dies, timed, a guarantee, the voice does not die with her.

It is a relief and a regret, to know that there is another in Byleth’s mind.

The voice sings its praises for their students, the staff, Byleth themselves, congratulating the trees, the skies, the sound of pegasi hooves against the ground. It’s indulgent, it’s kind, it’s curious, and it’s cruel.

It has its favorites: students who accompany Byleth regardless of the path they (it) chooses, students Byleth will always prioritize as the enemies get harder (why do they get harder, not easier, they’ve been here before, they’ve been here _before_ ), students who Byleth will never allow to stand by their side. There are the favorites, to live, to survive, to engage and to marry, to live to the ends of their time in happiness.

It has its least favorites. Those unlucky ones, those select few, Byleth knows well, perhaps even better than its favorites, because those are the ones Byleth kills with their own sword, watching their former students (once, long ago, why is it so long ago) plead, fight, cry.

Die.

And die.

And die. Again, and again, and againagainagaina _gainainainainainainain_

It is ironic, in some cruel twist of fate, that Byleth, Byleth alone, has the ability to save those damned souls, that Byleth is the one who can turn back the hands of time, that Byleth is the one with that voice in their head, wanting, mocking, needing to see, just once.

Ashe kills his father, no matter the house, no matter the time. Sylvain his brother. Mercedes and Emile (Jeritza, Death Knight, the man who had once never spoken to Byleth once different and now wishes to live his life by their side, sometimes, sometimes, bent by rules by someone beyond).

Dimitri and Edelgard. Claude and Edelgard. Edelgard and Rhea. Rhea and Edelgard.

Jeralt.

Dad.

There are timelines where Byleth walks with their lord, alone. They do not recall time, they do not take a glance back, even as their classmates die to common enemy they had killed thousands of times before, even as their enemies (students too, Byleth thinks, but the words have long faded in meaning) fall to their blade. There are times where Byleth walks with everyone, almost, as many people as they can bring. There are those who refuse to come, Hubert and Dedue, Hilda when Edelgard is the one who the voice picks. There are the immovable, Claude and Dimitri, Edelgard and Rhea.

It makes it so painful when they meet once again, in that tiny town of Remire, when Claude and Dimitri smile as though they were not almost killed by men called by their princess, when Edelgard sees Byleth as a human as much as a weapon because she does not yet know that there is no human left in this carcass.

Rhea smiles at them, appraises their teaching potential, and it is every muscle of Byleth’s body that shrieks that they are no teacher, no professor, no friend nor lover, because as many times as Rhea has held their hands and confessed their love they have murdered her once again.

Rhea speaks of her mother, her family, living within Byleth, living as Byleth. And the only solace Byleth can muster is the barest twitch of a false smile.

There lives a voice inside Byleth’s head.

It is not Sothis’, no, but it is not theirs either. They thought that once, twice, loops and loops over again with the same dull thud in their limbs, yet even though it may sometimes match their quiet timbre, their brutal efficiency, it is not them. A long time ago, Byleth had put their hands together and prayed, to Sothis, to themselves, to the higher voices, for peace, for prosper, for pause.

It is not Byleth, because Byleth screams and cries and crumples every time Jeralt dies, and the voice never lets them turn back time.

Byleth lives, and Byleth lives, and though they cannot guarantee anyone else’s life they know who dies. Who dies, even though Byleth screams for them, for their misunderstandings, for the times they have left, for the ifs and the buts about their life.

They do not want Ashe to accompany to apprehend Lonato, nor do they ever try to accommodate Sylvain to Miklan. But it is not their voice that echoes, hollow, dangerous, that betraying mouth making room.

Claude’s eyes track their own, once, when the moon had set and the night had risen, the binds on their body fallen loose. He had spoken, something, hollow and curious and dangerous, and Byleth had spoken the truth.

Byleth warns Edelgard, speaks to Dimitri, holds hands with Rhea. They smile and they plead and they cry, tired eyes expelling truth, and the world allows them. Allows that, a single moment of solace in the night.

The next day came, the next day went. The voice had returned, and not a single person had any recollection of their time spent together. It was as though they were stuck on these little paths they stand on, voices inside their own head. Forgetting. Denying.

Time moves on, and Byleth kills them again, because there has never been another path. Not this time, nor the last, nor ever in this damnable world.

There lives a voice inside Byleth’s head.

It is not Sothis’, nor is it their own. It is distinct, this myriad of thoughts, emotions, a knowledge of the universe Byleth has seen in so many timelines. It speaks of mysteries and cheat codes, of locks and achievements. It asks Byleth to kill their students just because and resets time because Byleth can.

Byleth lives, and lives, and lives, and it is hope, it is terror, that betrays them when they awaken to a full moon peering in through the window, the sound of children knocking on their door, the clank of armor. There is a fire crackling in the distance, cheap mercenaries preparing to burst through the door. In the shadow of the room, the recesses where Sothis hides, the legendary general stands.

“Byleth,” Jeralt greets.

“Dad,” Byleth says, and time begins anew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks!!
> 
> This fic was a little dive into game mechanics and the idea of "what if the player and Byleth were not the same entity?" It was always going to end up with Jeralt, and the idea of inevitability in a game that has a defined beginning, end, and reset option with save files. I've played Undertale lol but these sort of meta game theory and conceptual deep dives have always interested me, and with how Byleth is sometimes seen as a self-insert and other times as an independent character, I wanted to play with the idea that Byleth could be both, and what would stem from that.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure where to put this, so into the end notes it goes: There is a kind of plot going on in this fic even though the chapters are separate. Feel free to read them in any order/treat them as individual drabbles!
> 
> If you enjoyed reading my fics, want to yell about found families, or support me, please check out my twitter [ @Shidreamin ](https://twitter.com/shidreamin/)! I’m more active on there, and you’ll be able to see my zine previews before I post them here, as well as some WIP in the future! I've also recently set up a [ Curious Cat ](https://curiouscat.me/shidreamin/) and [ Ko-Fi ](https://ko-fi.com/shidreamin/), if you'd prefer messaging me anonymously. ♥ ♥ ♥


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